PBDE Levels Higher in Children’s Bodies

Please note that this section contains my personal notes from my readings on this topic.

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From The Toxic Sandbox (2007) by Libby McDonald; pages 112 – 113:

For one small study, a single Berkeley, California, family of four — mom, dad, a five-year-old daughter, and an eighteen-month-old son — all gave blood to be tested for levels of PBDEs, first in September 2004 and then again ninety days later. The Berkeley family used no common household cleaners or pesticides, had no wall-to-wall carpeting, and owned no new large appliances. The mother was a university researcher and the father, who was from the east coast, taught high school. Their daughter attended kindergarten and the baby, who was still breast-feeding at the time of the study, spent his days both in child care and at home with his mother and father.

The researchers in this study discovered that, unlike PCBs, which accumulate in our bodies as we age, levels of PBDEs are two to fifteen times higher for children than adults. Most alarming was that these levels were uncomfortably close to those associated with adverse effects on reproduction and neurodevelopment in laboratory animals. While the adults’ PBDE concentrations approached US median concentrations, the children’s concentrations were near the maximum found in American adults.

So why were the children’s levels sky high when the parents’ levels were average? One explanation is that because the children spent a good deal more time on the floor they had more exposure to the penta- and deca- PBDEs in the household dust. Household dust accounts for 80% of total daily PBDE expsoure for toddlers, compared with 14% for adults. The EPA estimates that children from age one to four ingest one hundred milligrams per day.

The children’s diets could be another source of exposure. Although there is a lack of data on dietary PBDE exposure, there is good data on exposure through breast milk. Dr. Schecter assumes that although both children were breast-fed, the baby’s level was particularly high due to more recent breast-feeding. “Babies get a whopping dose from mother’s milk,” he said. As mothers who provide this magic elixir, mother’s milk, we have to wonder at its almost curative power in offsetting the dangers of this environmental toxin.